[slammer400]

How do manufactures decide which models to produce? I'm wondering why one of the most known pilots in the US is the most under represented in these collections?

Do the manufactures have to get permission form living pilots to re-produce one of their planes, would Corgi or Franklin Mint have to pay Chuck Yeager if they put out a Mustang of his?

I'm very new, and maybe its possible I missed them, I have only searched a fraction of the stores you guys have, but it seems there are only a couple.

Thanks for all the "favorite stores", I have a lot of looking around to do before I decide which end to jump in on...thanks again.

[bsmith13]

No one can fathom the minds of the diecast makers. We've been debating why they do what they do for a long long time. It seems to me that most of them will try not to do an aircraft livery that has been done before, at least not recently. Dragon is sometimes exception to this observation. At this point, there are no copyright laws about aircraft and liveries, though legislation about that keeps coming and going through congress.

Let's take Chuck Yeager for an example, since you mentioned him. In 1/72, Witty and Dragon did a P-51D in Yeager's colors. I keep looking for the Dragon; it's pretty hard to find at a reasonable price. Bud Anderson is another famous pilot from the 357th, and has had at least one P-51D represented in 1/72 (by Matchbox; there might be others). If I were in the position to determine which livery to put my P-51B or D in this year, I would be faced with a difficult choice. Do I release something that many of my customers probably have? Or do I do something complementary, like another 357th aircraft (Dragon's Nookie Bookie or Gemini's Berlin Express)? Or do the collectors want something else? What will they buy?

In the end, if you really want a particular livery, you are left with two choices. Troll the online stores, brick and mortar stores, TMH classifieds, eBay and airshows for them. Or wait and see if someone makes it again. In the case of somebody as famous as Yeager, you might get lucky. Waiting for more obscure liveries seems less certain.

Not sure this helps, but I think about it a lot just before I bid on a piece..."how much do I really want this?"

[1250ships]

You can break this into two areas- moulds and liveries.

A mould is a huge investment and the company wants to make sure they will get their money back out of it. They want to make sure there will be enough collector interest to sell the models. Realisitically you will sell a lot more Mustangs than you will Italian fighters because the average person knows what a Mustang is. That is why we get so many Mustangs, Spitfires, Corsairs, and 109s.

To keep the price reasonable they want to spread the cost of master and tooling over multiple releases. That means having enough unique liveries to attract collector attention. I've heard it said that you need five good liveries to make it worthwhile. So aircraft that only appeared in one or two paint schemes are poor candidates. Obviously the more liveries you can do and that will sell the more you can spread the cost around and reduce your prices. Lots of liveries also means you can get more return from your initial investment.

When it comes to liveries you also need to worry about documentation. One reason we sometimes see the same couple of liveries from multiple companies (example- the F-104 Really George) is that those liveries are well researched and easy to produce. There is often a strong relationship between available decals in the kit model world and what appears in diecast because you can use the decal sets as the basis for your model. In some cases where there are mistakes in the decal set those exact same mistakes appear in the diecast models.

If you lack the proper documentation it is hard to do the model. For example, if you have a photo of only one side of an aircraft you have to guess what was on the reverse. Also it can be hard to get the colors correct if you only have black and white images. Thus if the plane is a well known reference book with color photos or drawings someone is going to do it sooner or later because it is easier.

Finally you have to factor in what other companies are doing. If you feel that most collectors already have the Dragon version of the Yeager P-51 in their collections you are unlikely to do 2,000 more of them because they won't sell. You also risk being pre-empted by Dragon re-releasing their copy, something in theory they could do quickly if they still have the parts and setups for the tampon machine.

[timbo]

Originally Posted by 1250ships

You can break this into two areas- moulds and liveries.

You also risk being pre-empted by Dragon re-releasing their copy, something in theory they could do quickly if they still have the parts and setups for the tampon machine.

I hope not.

[1250ships]

Originally Posted by timbo

I hope not.

Sorry, but that is how it is spelled. See: http://www.tampoprint.de/gb/produkte...en/strden.html which is the website of the German company that invented the process. From their site:

Tampon/Pad Printing Machines with "Hermetic" Ink/Doctoring cup

Even worse when you read that it has an Ink/Doctoring cup.....

[bsmith13]

Originally Posted by 1250ships

...Sorry, but that is how it is spelled...

Normally, I detest mispronounced americanizations of words, like "nuke-yeller" etc. But in this case, I will make an exception. The Tampon Machine is dead! Long Live the Tampo Machine!

[1250ships]

In the original German it is Tampondruckmaschinen. So that is not an Americanizaton.

[bsmith13]

Yes, I know. I was trying to be funny. But I'm not as good at it as Skunky.

[1250ships]

You either need more smilies or more odor....

[hawkonevoodoo]

Originally Posted by 1250ships

You can break this into two areas- moulds and liveries.

A mould is a huge investment and the company wants to make sure they will get their money back out of it. They want to make sure there will be enough collector interest to sell the models. Realisitically you will sell a lot more Mustangs than you will Italian fighters because the average person knows what a Mustang is. That is why we get so many Mustangs, Spitfires, Corsairs, and 109s.

To keep the price reasonable they want to spread the cost of master and tooling over multiple releases. That means having enough unique liveries to attract collector attention. I've heard it said that you need five good liveries to make it worthwhile. So aircraft that only appeared in one or two paint schemes are poor candidates. Obviously the more liveries you can do and that will sell the more you can spread the cost around and reduce your prices. Lots of liveries also means you can get more return from your initial investment.

When it comes to liveries you also need to worry about documentation. One reason we sometimes see the same couple of liveries from multiple companies (example- the F-104 Really George) is that those liveries are well researched and easy to produce. There is often a strong relationship between available decals in the kit model world and what appears in diecast because you can use the decal sets as the basis for your model. In some cases where there are mistakes in the decal set those exact same mistakes appear in the diecast models.

If you lack the proper documentation it is hard to do the model. For example, if you have a photo of only one side of an aircraft you have to guess what was on the reverse. Also it can be hard to get the colors correct if you only have black and white images. Thus if the plane is a well known reference book with color photos or drawings someone is going to do it sooner or later because it is easier.

Finally you have to factor in what other companies are doing. If you feel that most collectors already have the Dragon version of the Yeager P-51 in their collections you are unlikely to do 2,000 more of them because they won't sell. You also risk being pre-empted by Dragon re-releasing their copy, something in theory they could do quickly if they still have the parts and setups for the tampon machine.

Well done, this is exactly how it works.